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UK-Israel 2030 roadmap to undermine Britain’s national security: Academic

UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (L) meets with the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen in London on March 21, 2023. (Photo via gov.uk)

The United Kingdom’s national security is seriously compromised after the UK and Israel agreed to sign the 2030 Roadmap for improving economic, security, and technology ties in March, says an academic.

Professor David Miller, sacked from his professorship at the University of Bristol in 2021 after a sustained campaign by Britain’s Israel lobby accusing him of being anti-Semitic, told Press TV’s weekly show Palestine Declassified the recent deal is “extremely worrisome.”

“This is clearly a further integration of the UK and Israeli intelligence, which is extremely worrisome because it means that the Israeli intelligence agencies have more access to data which is of national security concerns for the UK, it is a kind of penetration of Israeli intelligence into Britain’s national security architecture,” Miller said.

On March 21, Israel and the UK signed a landmark agreement that was said to define bilateral relations between the two countries until 2030.

According to the UK’s government website, the roadmap “contains detailed commitments for deepening cooperation across the breadth of the Israel-UK relationship, including on trade, cyber, science and tech, research and development, security, health, climate, and gender.”

Over the last decade, trade between Britain and Israel has increased by 73%, leading to a point where 400 Israeli tech companies alone operate on British soil. Israel has been elevated to a Tier 1 cyber partner with Britain, which will entail deeper integration.

Miller explained that being labeled as Tier 1 suggests that the UK and Israel “are one of the most important partners for cyber activities, but it is not something which is new, they have previously been a high-level cyber partner.”

He added that the official designation of Tier 1 means Israel works very closely with the UK and that there is an interpenetration of both business and intelligence operations, in particular cyber security, which enhances Israel's ability to do hacking and surveillance.

“It is really extremely worrying for anyone who is concerned about the Zionist entities and abuses of human rights,” Miller added.

Miller slammed the UK government for not taking a firm stance against Israel’s cyber attacks.

Between 2020 and 2021, it was revealed that around 400 British citizens, including the serving prime minister Boris Johnson, had their phones hacked by Pegasus spyware.

Pegasus is the hacking software – or spyware – developed, marketed, and licensed to governments worldwide by the Israeli firm NSO Group. It has the capability to infect phones running either iOS or Android operating systems.

In contrast to the US government, which promptly blacklisted NSO Group, Britain not only took no action against the company at all but has now deepened cyber relations with the squatter entity.

“We have no indication that British firms are involved in national security and cyber protection in Israel, but there are 400 Israeli tech firms operating in this country and many of them are staffed with people who have come straight out of Israeli intelligence organizations. This is a real national security issue, but there’s hardly anybody who is willing to recognize that,” Miller regretted.

He said that it is because forces within the national security state that used to regard Israel as a threat to the UK’s national security in the 1950s have been under threat and have gotten smaller.

“US seems much more cautious about having this kind of relationship with the Zionist entity. But the British did nothing about it, they seem to be quite happy for [letting] Israeli intelligence actually be tapping UK politicians’ phones,” he concluded.


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